A horizontal band saw machine that includes a base mounted on a floor, a vertically-movable housing disposed above the base, a pair of wheels disposed horizontally at a lower portion of the housing, and an endless saw blade looped over the pair of wheels with to have a twist angle 0°, is generally known.
In such a horizontal band saw machine, a workpiece inserted between the base and the housing is cut by the saw blade tensely provided in a horizontal plane at the lower portion of the housing while moving the housing downward. Due to the twist angle 0°, a long object cannot be cut, but lifetime of the saw blade can be expanded. In addition, the horizontal band saw machine with the twist angle 0° is suitable for cutting off or slicing a short object.
When replacing a saw blade in the horizontal band saw machine, the saw blade in a horizontal posture is lifted up from beneath of the housing, and then attached to the pair of wheels. However, a band saw blade is generally very thin, and thereby its shape (the horizontal posture) cannot be kept by itself. Therefore, the saw blade is needed to be supported by plural operators, so that many man-hours are required and its operation is not easy. A Patent Document 1 listed below discloses an example for improving this problem.
In a method disclosed in the Patent Document 1, a jig that can be mechanically coupled with the pair of wheels (pulleys) from beneath is used. The jig is vertically movable by a predetermined stroke. First, for attaching a saw blade, the jig on which the saw blade is set is lifted up from beneath to attach it to the pair of wheels. Next, the jig attached to the pair of wheels is moved vertically to make a height level of the saw blade in line with a height level of the pair of wheels. Then, the saw blade is installed on the pair of wheels by expanding a distance between the two wheels. Finally, the jig is removed from the wheels. By using this jig, the operation can be done by one person.